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Foxtel to launch first 4K channel


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Saw a bit about this on the news last night and for some reason the short 4K clips that were shown looked stunning compared to the norml fta news. 

BUT !  why, how is this possible through a fta channels nightly news ?

My TV is 4K ready but l don't see picture quality like that on TV.

STRANGE !!!!!!!!

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The impression i got is that if you had the platinum package or the sports HD package you just need to call them and organise the IQ4 box out and you'll get the 4k channel for free...

That was the way it was spoken of last night on the news I thought.

 

If that is t he case I'll exercise my option and grab one, but, knowing Foxtel and their teething issues I can also see some issues with the new box, when I updated to IQ3, the initial set up was a PITA, hopefully with the 4k box its not the same experience.

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7 hours ago, Grumpy said:

Saw a bit about this on the news last night and for some reason the short 4K clips that were shown looked stunning compared to the norml fta news. 

BUT !  why, how is this possible through a fta channels nightly news ?

My TV is 4K ready but l don't see picture quality like that on TV.

STRANGE !!!!!!!!

Makes sense it would be better as its using the more efficient HEVC or H265 compression rather than the H264 type we use now for 2k sources :) Really an especially important codec for Foxtel as satellite bandwidth determines number of channels vs quality of those channels...

Curious there was no mention about the sound to be used but not unexpected as it is after all foxtel ; dd+ with atmos if their serious about it :rolleyes: 

Edited by cwt
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20 hours ago, :) al said:

will this be sourced of their 1080i :D cameras they have been using upto now ! ? 

 

It's my understanding that some of our Broadcasters have 4K Cameras and facilities now. Foxtel are marketing all the Cricket in 4K. That means they must have convinced Seven to agree to do the BBL & WBBL in 4K as well. Otherwise I don't know how they could be doing these in 4K. Also with regard to Foxtel, apparently there are 4 trucks that Foxtel use that are 4K capable.

 

During the recent DVB-T2 trials conducted in Sydney they had three LCNs. 401 = 4K, 402 = 1080p, 403 = 540p.

 

From the 4K transmissions, here are screenshots from:

 

Nine 4K:
https://i.imgur.com/02RzIln.jpg

ABC 4K:
https://i.imgur.com/VWCUk35.jpg

SBS 4K:
https://i.imgur.com/G6mUbJw.jpg

NITV 4K:
https://i.imgur.com/vx1srv7.jpg

 

Here's the demo loop uploaded to YouTube in its original 4K resolution. This was uploaded in 4K, but YouTube only seems to have made it available in 1080p.The SBS section had to be edited out due to a copyright claim from FIFA.

 

 

Edited by bizzibee
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My box arrived last Thursday. Had a bit of fun with it getting it to play nicely with a Yamaha 2050 amp and LG OLED C6 TV. The bad news is that despite it taking so long for them to release a 4K service, the box itself isn't HDMI compliant... 

 

The first day or so I had horrible intermittent flashes for a second or two at a time. I've seen similar things before, especially with Samsung's first 4K disc player, and recognised it as being the tell tale signs of HDCP renegotiation when something bad happens. First step was to put a HD Fury Integral unit between the box and the receiver to see what happened when it changed HDCP 2.2 to 1.4. The flashes got shorter (1.4 takes less time than 2.2), but were still there, so my gut feeling that something was intrinsically wrong with the signal looked correct. 

 

Using the app for the Integral I could see what the signal was that it was putting out. 2160P50 rec2020, 4:4:4, 12 bit at all times. According to everything I know, and HDMI.org's own website, that isn't a valid HDMI format, and would break the 18Gbps limit most likely which would cause the signal to drop and cause the HDCP renegotiations.  So I've had to put a very short HDMI cable to a Linker that I had spare in the chain to reduce the chroma to 4:2:0, and now the flashes have gone.

 

Hopefully Foxtel will fix that in a future firmware release. 

Edited by kitschcamp
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26 minutes ago, kitschcamp said:

My box arrived last Thursday. Had a bit of fun with it getting it to play nicely with a Yamaha 2050 amp and LG OLED C6 TV. The bad news is that despite it taking so long for them to release a 4K service, the box itself isn't HDMI compliant... 

 

The first day or so I had horrible intermittent flashes for a second or two at a time. I've seen similar things before, especially with Samsung's first 4K disc player, and recognised it as being the tell tale signs of HDCP renegotiation when something bad happens. First step was to put a HD Fury Integral unit between the box and the receiver to see what happened when it changed HDCP 2.2 to 1.4. The flashes got shorter (1.4 takes less time than 2.2), but were still there, so my gut feeling that something was intrinsically wrong with the signal looked correct. 

 

Using the app for the Integral I could see what the signal was that it was putting out. 2160P50 rec2020, 4:4:4, 12 bit at all times. According to everything I know, and HDMI.org's own website, that isn't a valid HDMI format, and would break the 18Gbps limit most likely which would cause the signal to drop and cause the HDCP renegotiations.  So I've had to put a very short HDMI cable to a Linker that I had spare in the chain to reduce the chroma to 4:2:0, and now the flashes have gone.

 

Hopefully Foxtel will fix that in a future firmware release. 

How could they get this soo wrong? Is there no R&D done on actual use.

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I think they work on the basis that a lot of very recent TVs are very promiscuous in what they accept in the name of future proofing and what third-parties have released, and the new chipsets are capable of signal formats that are not actually in the spec. That might be why Foxtel have put up a page of "supported" 4K TVs, ie ones that accept their borked signal. 

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I also suspect that if you were going direct from the Foxtel box to TV, and not going through a chain of HDMI chipsets, then the problem may not arise. Each chipset it likely to have its own limitations to overcome. But that's the whole point of EDID, surely? 

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Gee, that's keen.

 

What sort of data rates do they even think they're going to be running to do such high chroma/depth justice.   ?

 

1 hour ago, kitschcamp said:

2160P50 rec2020, 4:4:4, 12 bit at all times

Thanks for this info.   I wonder if this is some sort of bug, or is it actually representative of the content they're going to broadcast  (if so, wheeee!!!!!)

 

56 minutes ago, kitschcamp said:

very promiscuous

Yep.

 

Computers and broadcast gear already supports these widely ... and it's nice (very!) if Foxtels intention is to avoid conversion loss, and that they can really find the bandwidth to do this justice ..... BUT

 

1 hour ago, blybo said:

How could they get this soo wrong? Is there no R&D done on actual use.

 

Exactly.   Field testing would have shown almost nothing could do it ... and literally nothing reliably.    I'll be surprised if this is not a bug.

Edited by davewantsmoore
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Foxtel messaging around 4K has flavours of "we're your only hope as the nbn isn't good enough"

 

... which is a bit misleading seeing everyone is getting 25mbps+

 

BUT, if they are really planning to broadcast 4:4:4 12bit @ 50fps  .... then they may have a point.   You'll need 50++ mbps even with strong compression.

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14 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

Gee, that's keen.

 

What sort of data rates do they even think they're going to be running to do such high chroma/depth justice.   ?

 

Thanks for this info.   I wonder if this is some sort of bug, or is it actually representative of the content they're going to broadcast  (if so, wheeee!!!!!)

 

Yep.

 

Computers and broadcast gear already supports these widely ... and it's nice (very!) if Foxtels intention is to avoid conversion loss, and that they can really find the bandwidth to do this justice ..... BUT

 

 

Exactly.   Field testing would have shown almost nothing could do it ... and literally nothing reliably.    I'll be surprised if this is not a bug.

You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but... I'm calling it a test run before relocating it to the cinema room once it's built. The HDFury stuff is happy to accept anything that's thrown at it providing it's the correct bandwidth, thankfully, so it's relatively easy to work around if you own one. They freely say on their website the hardware will take 60FPS 4:4:4.  

 

What I find particularly fascinating is that Sky in the UK and Europe, who you'd expect Foxtel to borrow know how and standards from to reduce costs, have a technical guidelines document for providers of UHD content to them of what format the productions have to be delivered to them and they specify exactly what's required for chroma - 10 bit, 4:2:2. They also specify 25FPS (but also say elsewhere others by arrangement), so any 12 bit 4:4:4 shown on a TV would have to be upscaled, which most TVs would then need to downscale to 10 bit or 8 bit with dither. 

 

I'm hoping it's a bug, but it being a bug and it being fixed are two separate things. 

Screen Shot 2018-08-20 at 12.45.14 pm.png

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this isn't overly surprising to me.  when i first upgraded to IQ3 it was horrible mess.  None of there techies could assist, they sent people out who couldnt get it to configure and stream and handshake with the foxtel server etc.

swap in the old box and no issue straight away.  Eventually it worked itself out, 2 boxes later and 3 weeks of no service at all but it one day just decided to work and has been good since. 

 

I am keen to upgrade but i really don't want the experience i had last time.  Will watch this space and see the collective experiences..

Edited by 08Boss302
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19 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

BUT, if they are really planning to broadcast 4:4:4 12bit @ 50fps  .... then they may have a point.   You'll need 50++ mbps even with strong compression.

Don't think they've got the bandwidth. That single transponder is 29.4 mega symbols per second, 3/5 FEC and 8PSK. That's only just over 53Mbps for a whole transponder. I doubt they'll run one transponder per UHD channel, that would be seriously uneconomic. IIRC, the press releases talked about the channel being half that, which would fit more with 4:2:2 or more likely broadcast at 4:2:0 (matching UHD blu rays)

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17 minutes ago, kitschcamp said:

they specify exactly what's required for chroma - 10 bit, 4:2:2. They also specify 25FPS

Which seems sensible, of course.

 

I suspect the 12b 4:4:4 from Foxtel is a "bug" ... although it's not impossible that this is the format that their content starts in  (re-sampling it unnecessarily isn't good practise)

 

 

17 minutes ago, kitschcamp said:

I'm hoping it's a bug, but it being a bug and it being fixed are two separate things. 

Well, they'll obviously have to do something if they expect anyone anywhere to be able to watch  ;)

 

I'm hoping the "bug" is representative of what they hope to broadcast.    ie. the bug, is that the box is forcing into this format ....  the content is in that format .... and the fix, is to set the box into a better "default" mode (and if you have fancy gear you can watch in 12b 4:4:4)

 

 

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4 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

Which seems sensible, of course.

 

I suspect the 12b 4:4:4 from Foxtel is a "bug" ... although it's not impossible that this is the format that their content starts in  (re-sampling it unnecessarily isn't good practise)

 

 

Well, they'll obviously have to do something if they expect anyone anywhere to be able to watch  ;)

 

I'm hoping the "bug" is representative of what they hope to broadcast.    ie. the bug, is that the box is forcing into this format ....  the content is in that format .... and the fix, is to set the box into a better "default" mode (and if you have fancy gear you can watch in 12b 4:4:4)

 

 

It seems unlikely that film studios, for example, will scan a film in and render it in 4K 4:2:2 10 bit ready for broadcast and UHD discs, and then do it again just for Foxtel who want it in 4:4:4 12 bit. Similarly, international broadcast sports will be delivered to them via satellite using a common format. From the digging I've done, that's typically either 45Mbps H264/HEVC 4:2:2 or 60Mbps MPEG2 4:2:2.

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4 minutes ago, kitschcamp said:

It seems unlikely that film studios, for example, will scan a film in and render it in 4K 4:2:2 10 bit ready for broadcast and UHD discs, and then do it again just for Foxtel who want it in 4:4:4 12 bit.

Of course (films).  I was more thinking about news and sport, etc.

4 minutes ago, kitschcamp said:

Similarly, international broadcast sports will be delivered to them via satellite using a common format. From the digging I've done, that's typically either 45Mbps H264/HEVC 4:2:2 or 60Mbps MPEG2 4:2:2.

I see.    Then we'd expect for them not to re-sample that  (y)

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5 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

I see.    Then we'd expect for them not to re-sample that  (y)

You'd hope not, especially as it's just going to mean upscale for no reason then downscale to make it fit. I've reported it, anyway, whether the person receiving the report actually understands or not is a different matter. 

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Something tells me if the 4k box itself does the upscaling to 4:4:4, 12 bit it wont be to the standard of a pana UBD 900 [albeit at a recognised hdmi.org rate] ;) They will soon enough find out with people noticing their hdmi bandwidth isn't sufficient either way to their 10bit panels. 

 

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Ok, a bit of good news on the 2160P50 front. It looks like the initial upgrade of software when you power up the IQ4 box leaves the HDMI chipset in a strange state. Last night I powered off the box for ten minutes to make sure everything was fully powered down, then repowered up the box. It's now outputting 2160P50 12 bit 4:2:2 Rec2020, which is a properly supported HDMI mode. 

 

 

Photo-2018-08-22-05-37-48_7153.JPG

Edited by kitschcamp
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